space. We'd start on the baby anyway, our first joint project--which,
we believed, would only be the first of many.
But nothing happened. Over a year and still nothing.
That was when life began to feel like a cruel bait-and-switch. When you
aren't ready, you can produce a baby in a momentary absence-of-mind,
whereas once you're finally an adult, accomplished, lots-to-offer
woman, ready to be the mother you wish you'd had, your body has closed
down your baby-making equipment like an unused Rust Belt factory.
Fertility has calculatingly abandoned you for the Sun Belt of youth.
"Well," Dr. Hannah Klein, my long-time ob/gyn, declared, "our tests all
indicate you're both fertile, so just keep trying, under optimum
conditions."
Optimum conditions. There followed almost a year of "optimum
conditions." Do it upside down; wait and have a cold shower while I
take my temperature; no, not that way, not tonight. My mucus is
thicker: Quick! Eventually we both began feeling like laboratory rats.
Our once-incredible love life drifted into something only a boot-camp
sergeant with Nazi leanings could be turned on by.
I think that's what finally caused Steve to go over the edge. Three
months ago--a Friday morning I shall never forget--he stepped out of my
shower, swathed himself in a white towel, and announced he was going to
Central America to do a book. He needed time to think. The move, he
explained, wasn't about us. He really wanted to spend a year down there
with his Nikon, capturing the region's tentative processes of
democratic transition. Besides, he was beginning to think we'd both
gone a little mental about the baby.
Out came that special box of heartbreak again. I consoled myself we
were just having a seventh-inning stretch, but the wisdom in that box
told me I'd somehow blown it. The baby we hadn't created had become a
specter hovering in the ether between us, ever a reminder of failure.
As a parting gesture, the never-say-die long shot, he left a "deposit"
with Dr. Klein--for her liquid-nitrogen womb-in-waiting--enough for two
final intrauterine inseminations. Later on today I was going to see her
and find out if our last and final attempt had stuck. But nothing about
my cycle was giving me any hope.
In the meantime, though, I had a movie to finish. We were shooting an
interview at a five-story condominium building in Greenwich Village
belonging to a woman named Carly Grove, who'd recently adopted. Her
story was intriguing, but now--with my own hopes of ever having a baby
down to two outs in the bottom of the ninth--well, now I had more than
one reason for wanting to meet her. . . .
When I arrived, I lucked into a parking space right in front. Our
security guy, Lou Crenshaw, was off today getting some city paperwork
sorted out, but my crew was already upstairs--as director I get to
arrive at a decent hour, though later on I also get to do lonely
postproduction work till midnight--leaving our three vans
double-parked, with a New York City Film Board permit prominently
displayed inside each windshield. The building, formerly a Hertz
parking garage, was near the end of Barrow Street, facing the Hudson
River, and was filled with artists and entrepreneurs.
The truth was, I wanted to get the interview on film as soon as
possible. I was more than a little worried Carly might decide to get
cold feet and back out. She'd started to hedge when I had one last
confirming chat with her last night, something about a "no-disclosure"
agreement she now remembered signing. This had to be a one-take,
all-or-nothing shoot.
Which was why I'd sent down the full gang this morning, not just the
"key" personnel as I'd initially planned. Leading my (motley) crew was
the director of photography, first cameraman Roger Drexel, a grizzled
veteran with a ponytail who'd been with my producer, David Roth and his
Applecore Productions, from back when he did beach movies and splatter
films. He worked with the production manager, Erica Cole, our lipstick
lesbian, who coordinated crew schedules. The second camera was handled
by Greer Seiber, recently of NYU film school, who was so happy to have
a job, any job, she acted as though David's previous string of
low-budget, B-flick epics were remakes of _Gone With the Wind_.
Scott Ventri, another Applecore old-timer, was key grip, the guy who
got the gear on and off the vans, set it up, and signed off on safety
regs. Today he also was responsible for blacking out windows and
setting up lights. The chief electrician, gaffer, was Ralph Cafiero,
who'd come down the previous day and temporarily hot-wired the circuit
breaker in the apartment to make sure there was enough amperage. He and
his lighting "crew," another bright-eyed (and cheap) NYU grad named
Paul Nulty, had arrived this morning ahead of everybody else to
pre-light the "set," a northeast corner of the apartment.
I'm always a little hyper about sound, so I'd asked Tony Wills, who
handled recording, to also come down the previous day and record the
"tone" of the living room, the sound when there is no sound, in order
to have it available for editing. Today he'd run the boom mike and be
assisted by Sherry Moran, his latest girlfriend, who was
mixer/recordist. For Carly's makeup and hair, I had Arlene Morris, an
old friend from all the way back to my early days as an AD on the
soaps. . . .